This seems to have gotten way out of hand and I don't want to go around in cirlces but just to clarify. I only mentioned a philosophy background because someone accused me of making a straw man argument. Offering my opinion and asking for more constructive dialogue around the question of jamming (i.e. please tell me why jamming longer neccessarily equates to a better show) is in no way asking for a philosophical argument so the fact that it was event taken in that way or to that point was the real issue I was attemtping to address in mentioning my background.

I am happy to take some responsibility for my own ranting and for maybe not spelling out my intentions and meanings as clearly as I should have or perhaps could have. Be that as it may, I still attempted to generate some dialogue as to the deeper motivations behind the frustrated reviews I routinely come across bemoaning the lack of extended jams and the repetitiveness of certain song selections. I never took anyone particular to task for their opinions. I suggested - apparently in a way that some took to be perjorative - that the length of a jam and the quality of the playing are not equivalent (an opinion that I still maintain).

I can hear the frustration in some of the responses to my thread and unsderstand that perhaps my initial post came across a little strong and I do think that it was taken out of context (with someone suggesting that I think that people who want longer jams are size queens and someone else suggesting that I am trying to silence dialogue) but the intent behind it was still to offer a differing opinion and to generate conversation. Sometimes the best way to do that is to come on strong...

I am interested in other's opinions and see no reason to suggest that my opinion is better or more informed than anyone elses I would simply like to hear something said about what is and what isn't working in a given jam rather than generalized statements about length and frequency of songs.

I think that's a big part of my issue. I have seen and followed Phish through a variety of incarnations over two decades and I play music myself regularly and I don't share some of the opinions that I keep seeing. I take for granted that many of the other folks here have been into Phish and have been seeing them for as long and as freequently as I have if not more so and with that in mind I stuck my nose in and said something because I am in fact genuinely interested in why it is that others feel the way that they do.

At least with regards to this discussion I have to pass on making judgments about who is and who is not qualified to offer an opinion and who's opinion is more legitimate because I was just looking for some meaningful dialogue. I have some flexibility in what I respond to and what I choose to ignore so I don't see the need to alienate anyone by suggesting that their opinion is not as valuable as someone elses.

As for the matter of sticking to either offering a subjective opinion or else an objective review... I inititally posted my opinion vis a vis other opinions that have been posted. For example, statements like "this song must die" referencing the freequency at which Possum has been played of late, or else statements to the effect that their has not been enough extended jamming of late are in no way objective; to say that their has not been as much extended jamming as in the past is somewhat factual but the statement that there has not been enough is in fact an opinion (and to clarify again it is opinion that I would simply like to try to understand better - as someone who has heard almost all of these songs hundreds if not thousands of times the suggestion of overplay strikes me as a little odd).

Any mention of aesthetics and judgments were made in relation to this particular conundrum and only to clarify that it is not fair to suggest that I am making a straw man arguement because there really is no argument that I can make against these kind of opinions except to say that I personally don't agree with them (which I did and I realize now that I probably should have included that kind of phrasing in the original statement since so much of this has turned into a dialogue about semantics and interpretations).

Clearly I don't agree with some of the things that I have seen posted but if I were going to try to review the commentary, as has been suggested, I would actually want to see something substantial that I could offer a reasoned response to and I'm just not seeing that. I'm seeing a lot of there's too much of this song there's not enough of that jam. I am seeing some good stuff right now about song placement in response to the last UIC show and I am content to move on and see how things continue to unfold but I am still interested in hearing about why people feel the way that they do in regards to the matter I originally posted about.

Finally, it was stated that: "the devaluation of reflective thought is apparent whenever people make claims that one's opinions are subjective and thus one person cannot have greater insight than another. why not fire all the college professors, round up some bums and have them teach the students? would bail out many a school's budget problems. another hyperbolic example, but you see what i'm getting at here."

No actually I don't see what you are getting at here. We are particpating in an online dialogue that is pretty loose, not a roundtable on art criticism @ Harvard, and as I never said anything that should suggest that some opinions are not more well informed than others I don't get the necessity of this particualr point. Frankly nothing I see posted here (including my own ramblings) are at the level of philosophical criticism - NOR SHOULD THEY BE - and if I wanted to do philosophical analysis here I would have started off in that vein. Clearly when it comes to authentic philosophical critique some are more informed and more qualified than others but that being the case one can usually rely on those qualified individuals to state the reasons that support their conclusions. That being said, as far as I'm concerned in a chat space like this its people's human right to their opinions that I want to emphasize! I don't have to bother responding to opinions and arguments that strike me as hopelessly uninformed. And if others feel that way about my posts they don't have to respond to them either!

Sorry if this doesn't satisfy but I am out of time